Sex and the Citizenry:
Why Scandals Still Scandalize

By

Naomi Schaefer Riley

Updated Aug. 31, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

With the revelation this week that Sen. Larry Craig (R., Idaho) engaged in "disorderly conduct" in a men's bathroom of the Minneapolis airport, Republicans are looking less and less like the party of family values and more like the party of sexual scandals. And there is no doubt that the habits of Rep. David Vitter (R., La.), who was found to have been a client of a Washington prostitute, or Mark Foley, the former Florida representative who was accused of sending suggestive emails to congressional pages, have left many voters aghast.

But why? After all, we live in a culture awash in sex. Television, movies, billboards, the Internet. After watching a few minutes of MTV, is it really so shocking to find celebrities or even prominent politicians engaging in these sorts of activities? Sure, there's the hypocrisy of it all. The three involved here are outspoken social conservatives. And to be doing what they were doing while they were saying what they were saying does require a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, or, as my grandmother would say, chutzpah.

The scandals are as much about hypocrisy as sex, of course, but I would submit that the activities of these men are, if anything, more of a shock to the public's sensibilities than they would have been 50 years ago. Take Mr. Vitter, for instance. Before the sexual revolution, a man with the congressman's desires might well have had to resort to cavorting with women of ill repute. Prostitution was widespread and, as the recent book "Sin in the Second City" by Karen Abbott demonstrates, brothels were hardly hidden from public view. "The line of brothels and dives on State Street, from Van Buren to 22nd, was known as Satan's mile," Ms. Abbott writes. There was even a "guide to neighborhood brothels titled 'The Sporting and Club House Directory.' " But it wasn't just Chicago. Historic walking tours of cities from Charleston, S.C., to New York will inevitably include reference to the location of the old whorehouses. Everyone knew about them. And the politicians were frequent customers.

Today, most respectable citizens of New York and Chicago would be hard-pressed to tell a visitor where they could find such businesses. Why? In part, the demand for their wares has dwindled. Mr. Vitter and the rest of us live in an era where sex outside of marriage is pretty common, and sex before marriage is becoming universal. Sure, many people still frown on extramarital affairs, but one imagines that if Mr. Vitter had a Capitol Hill fling rather than purchased his companionship, his constituents might not be so disgusted. And, to be honest, in an era where sex is so widely available, Mr. Vitter also looks a little pathetic having to pay for his.

What about Messrs. Craig and Foley, who seem more interested in playing for the other team? Well, luckily, they live in a society where homosexuality is pretty widely accepted too. There are gay bars in Washington, Minneapolis and even Boise, one imagines. Heck, some states will officially sanction a homosexual relationship. Shortly after Mr. Craig's guilty plea was revealed, he told the press unconditionally, "I am not gay." But he's missed the point. If he were just gay, no one would even blink. Join the Log Cabin Republicans, for heaven's sake. Even some of his more religious supporters might just decide to love the sinner and hate the sin.

If this were a century ago and Mr. Craig were living in some sexually repressed society, where he could fulfill his sexual desires only in a seedy back alley, voters might feel a little bad for him. But in a nation that offers practically free rein to anyone interested in gay sex, why does Mr. Craig have to engage in this illegal and furtive (not to mention yucky) activity?

Mr. Foley's particular proclivities for teenage boys are, thank goodness, still off limits legally. And the general public is still repulsed by them. But perhaps it is precisely because social boundaries are drawn so widely that we guard them so vigilantly.

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